Monday, 19 February 2007

Jan C. Schlegel : Pain & Beauty

Jan C. Schlegel is a photographer from Germany, whose ethno-photographic work is in the tradition of Phil Borges. His black & white portraits are partially toned, rich in details and in depth.

His black & white photographs are made with a 4x5 field camera on T-max film, enlarged and printed on fiber base photo paper, and partially toned with chemicals of Schlegel's own mixture. The lengthy process is then finished by selenium toning the photographs.

His photographs are of children and older people in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mali, Algeria, Pakistan and India. He assures us that no one in his posed portraits wear any make-up, nor were they asked to wear any special dress. Nothing was staged and nothing is fake.

I found the quality of these photographs to be remarkable. His website claims that he succeeds in not only creating artistic photographs, but in documenting the uniqueness of his subjects...the people who posed for him. Absolutely.

About The Travel Photographer

Based in New York City, I am a freelance photographer specializing in documenting endangered cultures
and traditional life ways of Asia, Latin America and Africa. My images, articles and photo features were published in various magazines, and my travel photographs were featured by some of the largest adventure travel companies in the United States and Great Britain, as well as in multinational corporations' art collections. My photographs have been acquired by the Standard Chartered’ Bank's permanent art collection.

I also organize and lead photo expeditions and workshops for photographers who share my enthusiasm for unusual cultures,
uncommon locations and lesser known festivals.